Christopher Peet - Practicing Transcendence: Axial Age Spiritualities for a World in Crisis

Christopher Peet

Practicing Transcendence Axial Age Spiritualities for a World in Crisis

The greatest merit of Christopher Peets book is that it introduces a new, academically-grounded concept of the Axial Age and its place in world history in a way that is accessible to a wider audience. The general reader and professionals in the humanities and social sciences will equally find this book a really exciting read, a true intellectual journey.

Dmitri M. Bondarenko, Director of the International Center of Anthropology, National Research University, Russia

Christopher Peet has done a remarkable job of bringing together this complex history in lucid prose. He presents a new perspective on the key idea of transcendence that emerged in the axial age, which marks the Axial road not taken, undervalued by Big religion as well as scholars thus far. Most notably, he reveals how transcendence needs to be understood not simply as an idea, but as living spiritual practices bodied forth by visionaries in small communities then, and just as available as vital resources now. The self-transcending self, as the practical aim of a variety of axial spiritual practices, remains a viable and potent path to offset our power-centered civilization today.

Eugene Halton, Professor of Sociology, University of Notre Dame, USA

The Axial Agethe period from 800 B.C.E. to 200 B.C.E., when the religio-philoso-phic foundations of the world religions were createdhas over the past several decades been the subject of a burgeoning literature in history, civilization studies, sociology, and political science. In Practicing Transcendence: Axial Age Spiritualities for a World in Crisis , Christopher Peet provides a masterful synthesis of the now vast literature relating to the Axial Age. His interpretation emphasizes the visionary ways in which figures of the Axial Age in China, India, Israel, and Greece responded to crises in the civilizations of their times. The esteem previously accorded to the famous works of S.N. Eisenstadt and Robert N. Bellah must now be shared with Peets contribution; his work is truly indispensable to future scholarship on the Axial Age. Peet bookends his analysis with an introduction and conclusion highlighting the pertinence of Axial Age visions and practices to the crisis of civilization that we, citizens of global society, experience today with the growing assaults on our shared environment.

Victor Lidz, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Drexel University College of Medicine, USA

to children and wild things -

by your innocence

we measure our worth